Edwyn Tait
Edwyn Seymour Reid Tait (b. 14 January 1885, Lerwick, d. 6 November 1960, Braehead, Scalloway) was an author, folklorist merchant, draper and Councillor.
Edwyn worked as a merchant and draper in Lerwick at the family business. He was the second child of George Reid Tait (b. 1829, Lerwick), and Johan Frances Johnson (b. 7 Aug 1859, Lind, West Yell). Reid Tait married Jemima Brown, (b. 1894, Lerwick), in 1922 at St. Nicholas, Aberdeen.
Reid Tait was an antiquary, and founder and president of Shetland Folk Society. He was also a keen collector of books and articles about Shetland. One of his unfinished projects was the creation of a Shetland bibliography: his drafts of it are now in the Shetland Museum and Archives. When he died he bequeathed his collections to the Shetland Library.
He was the 1911 Guizer Jarl for the Lerwick Up Helly-Aa in his own right, and performed the role again in 1912 substituting for an absent H. Kay.
As a Rechabite, he was a prominent activist with the local temperance movement's successful bid to introduce alcohol prohibition in Shetland in 1921.
Bibliography
- Statistical account of Shetland, 1791-1799, drawn up from the communications of the ministers of the different parishes by Sir John Sinclair. [Extracts from The statistical account of Scotland.] 1925
- Hjaltland Miscellany vols 1-5, compiled and edited, sometimes with Christina Jamieson, 1934 etc.
- Pioneers of the temperance movement in Lerwick: being an address delivered by E.S.R. Tait at the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Rechabite Hall, Lerwick, April 5, 1922, 1923
- Shetland Folk Book Vol. 1, co-edited with Thomas A. Robertson and John J. Graham, Shetland Folk Society 1947
- Two translations from the Dano-Norwegian: I. About contacts between the Orkneys and Shetland and the Motherland Norway after 1468 (Dr. Daae's treatise). II. The letters of Jakob Jakobsen, D.Ph., to Gilbert Goudie, F.S.A. Scot. 1953
- Lerwick Miscellany, 1955
Political Career
External Link
There is a picture of Reid Tait, in the company of John Nicolson and others, in the Shetland Museum photo archives.
